


Shrike

by Heavydirtys0ul



Category: Torchwood
Genre: I'm here to fix RTD's mess and then die, Janto? In my 2020? It's more likely than you think, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, There's A Tag For That, Title from a Hozier Song, but I promise lots of hurt/comfort and fluff and smut along the ride, miracle day just never happened, this is gonna be a long one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24528268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heavydirtys0ul/pseuds/Heavydirtys0ul
Summary: Ianto Jones died. He died, in pain and in love and for the sake of people he'd never known. Months later, a stranger stands outside of Torchwood with instructions to fulfil and powers that Jack has never seen in his very long life, and Ianto Jones is about to learn that fate has amusing and cruel games to play.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 18
Kudos: 30





	1. Remember me love, when I'm reborn, as the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn.

**Author's Note:**

> The show didn't have content warnings so I assume y'all are good without them. But anyway I got bored and rewatched all of Torchwood in like the space of three days. Can't believe I still cried over Ianto's death the way I did way back when. Doesn't feel like a decade man, but anyway he's a homage to the men that made me realise I was bi as fuck.

The hub is quiet, the slow beeps and ticks of technology echo in a space that feels far too big; the whirs and buzzing of electricity seemingly filling up the quiet. And it _is_ **far** too quiet. The last two standing know this, but they still can’t really bring themselves to address that. 

Jack leans against a railing with a cup of coffee that doesn’t taste quite right, he stares at the computer screen that he has been looking at for fifteen minutes, his eyes a little glassy as he bites his lip, deep in thought. He sips the coffee and stares more before a quiet _‘huh’_ escapes him, eyebrows furrowed before he looks up at the sound of footsteps. “That’s the last of the cleanup,” Gwen’s voice carries in the quiet, coming to stand behind the captain “Who's that?” 

“No idea, but he’s been stood outside for the past hour, standing right on the perception filter, staring at the camera,” He places the cup of coffee down and folds his arms “Whoever he is, he’s got my attention, and it’s _very_ clear that he wants it.” He sighs and turns to walk towards his office, in and out again in seconds as he pulls his coat on. “Keep an eye on that,” he points to the monitors “I’ll be back.” 

Gwen doesn’t doubt that for a second, giving the taller a quick smile as he moves towards the exit. He doesn’t see but the smile is dripping in sympathy and pity...and it’s best that he doesn’t see, really. 

\--

The Cardiff air is still and cold; the wind neither suffocating nor gentle as Jack approaches the front entrance from the back. The last thing he wants is something or someone unknown wandering into the Torchwood facility. He gets a faint smell of salt and chlorine as he approaches the stranger, standing at a safe distance before burying his hands in his pockets, raising an eyebrow. “Can I help you?” The sarcasm bleeds from his tone, but the stranger laughs like he is greeting someone familiar, moving forward to stand facing the captain. 

“In a literal sense or…?” He trails off, the smile slipping “Of course, well, you see Captain Jack Harkness, it’s really more what I can do for you.” Jack stares at the man with careful concentration, documenting everything he sees in the other; tall, not fat nor thin, but with a round face and green eyes. It’s a habit he’s picked up, you never really know when you will need to record the details. “I was sent here to help you,” The stranger sighs, long and hard “I don’t really know if I can, but somethings I can only try, hm?” The accent is tinged with Scots, but it sounds almost performative as though it’s something he’s only recently learned to do.

“Thanks, but I don’t need your, or anyone’s help,” The American’s gaze does not waver as he stares firmly at the other man, his back straight and his fist clenched in his pockets. Still, he tried to appear relaxed. “How did you know I was here, and how do you know who I am?”

“We have a common friend,” The stranger replies. There’s quiet and Jack takes a deep breath in. He has a lot of ‘friends’ throughout time and space, it could be any which one. He runs a mental checklist whilst he surveys the other’s reactions, trying to gauge whether he is lying.

“What’s your name?” Jack finally asks after a beat of silence, the other snorts and quirks his eyebrow “What? Not fond of handing that out?” 

“That’s rich coming from a man who has had so many identities that he is almost impossible to trace,” A roll of the eyes, but it’s not truly irritated either. “Names are fickle things and I’m not exactly fond of handing it out to someone who generally shoots to kill.” He shrugs, looking towards the water for a moment. “You can call me Attis.” The stranger takes a deep breath and steps forward, Jack flinches but does not step back; whoever this person is, speaking cryptically and yet in such an exhausted fashion, the captain is not sure he can quite trust him. 

“And what, _exactly_ , are you wanting to help me with? Who sent you here?”

“I’m told you recently suffered a great loss, I’m here to correct it...and as much as I’d like to say it is out of the goodness of my heart it is also a fixed point in history, I am meant to be here,” Attis' tone sounds like a long sigh, his face hard with a look of displeasure “Which is not something I should know, nor want to know.” Jack stares harder at him, his look flickering between curiosity and annoyance, he’s tired of the riddles and Attis shares that sentiment “I’m here to bring Ianto Jones back from the dead.” 

The silence that follows that sentence is coarse, hard, even the background noise of the night time city does not pierce it. All Jack hears is static and ringing as the words sink through him, his shoulders slump a little and finally, he takes the step back that he had wanted to take previously. “No,” He replies, voice no more than a hoarse whisper. “No I have seen what that does, and I am not putting him through that.” 

“Eventually you won’t have a choice, you more so than anyone should know what a fixed point means, it is inevitable... _he_ is inevitable.” 

“But why? Why Ianto? He’s just... _Ianto_.” He is, not to Jack, **_never_** to Jack...but still to the universe, Ianto is nothing but a Welsh coffee boy who is handy with a gun. The stranger sighs and looks down at the pavement, seemingly looking for words that he doesn’t really have. There’s a second deep breath and then he shrugs and meets Jack’s eyes.

“What was so special about you?” Attis’ voice is steady and holds no confrontation, no mocking or berating, it is just...a question. Jack’s hands finally leave his pockets only for them to hang helplessly by his side. 

“What are you?”

“I don’t know.” Jack opens his mouth to push further, but Attis holds up a hand and shakes his head “Seriously, I do not know, you may use your lie detector on me if you so desire, but I have no idea what my species is, if I’m the only one of them or if I’m the last of my kind...I’ll be honest I’m not exactly _searching_ for answers either.” He has been walking forward and the taller man doesn’t really notice until Attis is right in front of him. His green eyes reflect the light, they do not look human if he stares too hard. Perception filters don’t really work on Jack so it’s not that, it’s something written into this creatures biological code, like a chameleon. “Don’t suppose we could do the tragic backstory over a cup of coffee, I am in England, on Earth and although this planet is about two decades away from becoming a fireball, it’s still ironically freezing cold...so could we…?” He gestures around. 

Jack takes a second and stares hard at the other, before nodding, he moves around him and strides with purpose towards the entrance, leading Attis with him.

\--

Gwen looks unnerved as the conversation is recounted to her. The...man, if that is an accurate descriptor, stands behind Jack, arms folded as he looks around the building from where he is stood. “So a fixed point means no changing it?” She asks, Jack nods. “And if he’s lying?”

“I’m going to use the lie detector on him first before I let him anywhere near Ianto’s body, you see if you can dig up anything in the meantime,” The captain glances back at the other man, seeing him staring at the ceiling with an exhausted expression on his face. “Right this way,” He gestures towards his office, and Attis walks towards it, his face drawn inward like he had a migraine. “Take a seat,” Jack closes the door behind them, moving to set up the lie detector. Attis sits, fidgeting a little as he stares at the other’s movements. “You look tired,”

“You’d think being underground would be good for people like me, but there’s so much metal and hard rock,” 

“People like you?” 

“I’m not fond of answering questions twice, so lets just...wait for you to set up your contraption.” 

Jack nods in agreement, setting down the metal box, the glowing green light hurts Attis’ eyes and he looks away from it with a wince. The captain sits down on the other side of it, staring hard at the creature. In the light he could see veins stark against his skin, sweat clinging to his brown...and dirt, like soil. “When were you born?”

“October 31st, 1853.”

“Where?”  
“Ireland.” 

“Why the accent?”

“Scotland is the last place I lived before I left Earth.” 

Jack leans back in his chair, his hands folding on his stomach as he studies the other, the light stays green. “Why did you leave? Was it of your own accord? And how?” 

“Hunters came for me, they wanted to use me for bait I think. They knocked me out and took me away; when I woke up I felt so weak...being so far away from the Earth hinders my powers and makes me feel sick, ill, but also so angry...I knew where I belonged. I killed them all but I was too weak to get back home.”

“And how did you get back?” Attis raises an eyebrow, the slightest smile on his lips. He takes a deep breath and leans back, his eyes glazing over as if he’s reliving a memory. He remembers the glow, the hum, the whir of the machine that took him home, and the way it breathed.

“A man, well, a traveller, he brought me back, the wrong time and the wrong place but...Earth nonetheless.” Jack’s breath hitches a little. “But he isn’t the one who sent me to you." There’s a silence that stretches “The person who sent me to you is a human as far as I could tell, and he definitely wasn’t with a machine like that.” 

"What are you?" 

He meets Jack’s eyes for a second “I don't know, and I don't want to know; I’m sure you understand what it’s like...to feel like you want to be normal, to be human just...just for a second, I don’t want to know what I am...why I haven’t aged in centuries, why I have this... _gift_ , why my own parents didn’t love me, I don’t want to know. I am _happy_ not knowing.” Jack does know that feeling; when he woke up from holding a dead Ianto in his arms after he felt his body take its last breath, he had wanted more than ever to be dead. To never see life again, or feel it’s cold touch dragging him back from the dead. No matter how many times it occurs, to feel someone wither in his arms is the most pain he could ever expect.

“What gift?” He asks after a long pause in his own thoughts. “How exactly do you bring people back from the dead?”

Attis sighs and sits up again, placing his hands on the table. “The Earth grants me it’s powers, it’s soul, I can feel it and communicate with it, and it communicates with me.” He bites the inside of his lip “At first it was only a defence mechanism, the trees would grow for me, and protect me, this far down in a room full of solid rock and metal is hard to show but some of that power lives inside me too.” He upturns his hand, there is a cluster of little roses growing on the inside of his palm, petals sprouting outside of the skin. “It doesn’t hurt, I barely feel it to be honest.” He turns his palm to the desk again as the flowers shrink inward. “And then I learned how to control it, it took many years and lots of travels, I have only ever encountered one other person like me...she was a child, her parents drowned her alive.” Jack’s face turns hard “I tried to save her, the trees tried to save her, so did the water, but she was so frail the poor thing. They left her body in the water and I buried her, her soul lives with them now...to keep her out of The Dark.” Attis looks tired, his shoulder slumping a little. “From there, I taught myself how to heal, I healed myself and others too...and soon my powers did not just belong to the plants and trees and running waters, but the spirit too.”

“You mastered the elements?” Attis nods, shrugging like it’s not that big of a deal. “But that’s like something out of a storybook.”

“Maybe it is, not everything has to be alien, the Earth itself has enough power.” Attis stares at the rock and running water outside of the office. “I theorised once that maybe I am a changeling, but Faeries and the like are perhaps not the stuff of Torchwood.” 

“You’d be surprised.” Jack chuckles shortly, before stopping. His face falls a little as he stares at the other, he'd never known those creatures to produce even their own offspring...they claim children for their own, but perhaps that is not so much impossible as very unlikely. There’s a lot that even Torchwood doesn’t know about Fairies and his limited encounters with them have proved...harsh, but they are generally not a threat unless threatened. Which is possibly why Attis hadn’t noticed his powers until he was put in a dangerous situation. Learning to control them alone though...that is impressive. He does have to wonder how that even happens. “You were born on October 31st?” A nod confirms this. “In pagan traditions, October 31st is one of the days in which the veil between worlds is thinnest, whilst pagans believe it to be the veil between our world and the afterlife, it’s very possible that it’s something else.” He shakes his head “You are not human.” Attis flinches “You don’t have to be human either, you are clearly not a threat or Torchwood would have picked you up by now, so I have no interest in locking you up, but I need to know exactly what you are whether you want the results or not...because if another one of you comes along that isn’t so desperate for kindness, we need to be prepared.”

Attis closes his eyes and sighs. _“Fine.”_ The word is spoken in a way that suggests he is not fine at all. “Can I please do what I came to do now?”

“Not so fast.” Jack chuckles dryly. “I have more questions; the first is, is bringing Ianto back to life really a fixed point in history?” 

“Yes.” The light stays green. Jack nods.

“Most importantly, do you intend to harm him in any way?” 

“No.” Green. Jack sighs with relief. 

“Do you know if he’ll be...this power of yours...will it change him?” Attis pauses, he looks down at his hands, thinking before he gives his answer. 

“Every person reacts differently, human bodies are...fickle...the way they take to the power varies, I’ve brought people back only for them to die weeks later from heart failure, and I’ve had ones that couldn’t be brought back at all, one though…” He bites his lips “He is like you, he cannot die.” Jack exhales, air whistling between his teeth at its forcefulness. “And I think that is the way Ianto will be. He will be alive, he will have a heart rate, but his body will be in a constant state of regeneration, his cells, his muscles and bones...all of it. Alive forever.” 

Selfishly, Jack wants that more than anything; a lover that can truly spend forever with him, by his side. And Ianto is not here to decide _if_ there truly is a decision to be made, a fixed point in time, Ianto Jones...what could he have possibly done to be a part of fate itself? “Okay.” He replies because is there really anything else to say? “Why?” Attis shrugged. 

“I don’t really ask questions when it comes to the past, present and future, I just do as I’m told, besides, it’s been a while since I’ve been to Cardiff.” He smiles tiredly, the small sort of half-smile people give when it’s too late at night and they want to go to bed. “If I had to guess, and I’m not fond of doing so...I’d say he still has work here that he needs to do, it could be a coincidence that he works for Torchwood, or that he works for you specifically, but I got given a whole briefing on Ianto Jones before I ended up here with you.” He purses his lips in thought “He’s survived so much, maybe it just isn’t his time to die.” Attis stands up slowly, cracking his back “Unfortunately I just don’t know why, really, it’s only speculation...the pieces in a game never know what they’re doing...only what they’re instructed to do.”

Jack nods slowly and stands himself, he rests his hand on the back of the chair and looks to the ground, seemingly deep in thought. He takes a deep breath in and nods. “Okay, okay.” 

The captain leads the newcomer down past Gwen, she looks up from the computer with her hands frozen above the keyboard, watching them. Jack does not look back at her, and she chews the inside of her cheek before shaking her head and taking after them in a quick walk, trying not to draw too much attention to herself but not really remaining hidden either. If they’re bringing Ianto back from the dead she wants to watch, she wants to be there. 

\--

Attis has seen this man’s face in pictures before; he knows who Ianto Jones is, he knows what he looks like in a tidy suit and when he is trying to suppress a smile for the camera. He knows what he looks like alive. “It doesn’t get easier,” The man mutters softly, staring at the body of a dead man “You would think I’d be used to it...dead people, but I’m not, it’s still scary.” Gwen looks over at him and offers a reassuring smile, Jack doesn’t say anything at all, but there’s a hollow look in his eyes. “In the last ten, twenty years, I’ve had people come into the forest to bring back their loved ones, so many times I’ve had to say no...it’s not my decision.”

“Whose is it, then?” Gwen asks, staring at him like she’s looking for answers that most human beings never once get. 

“When these people are brought back they have a little piece of my power in them, it heals them, it regenerates them...the forest can talk, it’s strange for you to know of course because trees are just trees, but they’re not, they have...souls so to speak, they give me a feeling of whether or not the person can receive the power, it depends on more than just whether it will be accepted into their body or destroy them further, but also balance...if I mess this up too many times we will have one earth full of immortals.” Attis’ eyes do not leave Ianto’s body as he stares at the lifeless corpse. “I can’t always tell the effects, and sometimes the Earth’s soul can be wrong, they are not all-knowing and I think I might be some sort of experiment on their behalf.” He finally looks away, up at Jack instead “It’s not a nice feeling, is it? To be the hand of fate? No idea if there will ever be more of you.” 

Jack does not respond, his jaw clenches a little but Attis can feel his answer. “Right then, let’s see how much energy this is going to take.” He stands by the table, one hand presses to Ianto’s heart and then the other to his mind. He closes his eyes for a second “He died by gas poisoning,” His eyes move underneath his eyelids. “I will start by repairing in his insides, then I’ll jumpstart his heart and mind at once, then I have to go into The Dark.” 

“How does it work, exactly?” Gwen asks curiously. 

“Well, we were all once creatures of water, our bodies developed from the seas, and was moulded by the land, I can see straight into people and use those elements to fix his body, it just takes knowledge of how to produce them and I do,” He moves his hands to Ianto’s stomach and ribcage. “Repairing his body isn’t the hard part though, all that requires is the power to know how the human body survives, how it lives.” He inhales sharply. “I need water and plants.” He pulls his hands away. “It’s s _uffocating_ down here.” He looks up at Gwen, his eyes are tired and black rings are forming underneath them, it’s now she notices his hands are becoming so pale that the veins below are showing almost translucently. “Do you have any human plants in your green room?” 

“Not really.” Attis looks up at Jack.

“We need to take him somewhere else, he’s been dead for...a very long time, this is going to be harder than usual and even then I have had more strength.”

“You get your energy from the plants?”

“Like every other animal.” The chuckle that leaves him does not have much humour, and if Jack had the energy to pity him, he might have. There again he doubts a creature such as Attis really wants or needs pity. Jack lifts Ianto off the table. 

“I know a place we can go.”

\--

“When you said that repairing his body isn’t the hard part, what did you mean?” Gwen asks in the mostly silent car ride, Attis stares at the dead body on the floor, his knees tucked up to his chest. 

“Human brains are very complicated, and when you die you don’t really die, your mind stops and your heart stops and your lungs stop...but a part of you, your innermost soul, that does not. That goes somewhere else.” He leans his head against the blacked-out windows, breathing steadily, he is holding flowers in his palms; Gwen should find it unnerving but she doesn’t really. “When our kind dies, the trees souls want us back because we belong to...The Invisible, the other side if you like. Human souls are similar...they go to The Dark, the Forever Buried, eternal darkness.” He takes a deep breath “I call it ‘The I Cannot See’,” he shakes his head “When I bring someone back I go there with the help of my kin.”

“That’s almost like...magic,” Gwen utters with an incredulous expression.

“I think humans just use that word when they don’t know what else it can be, they used to call Chemistry, Alchemy, and they used to call Physics, Gods...this is simply another thing that one day science can explain.” Attis looks down at his hands and the flowers retreat back into his palms. “I don’t know why I’m like this...I could know if I wanted too but...back where I’m from the locals think I’m a gift from the Gods or some travellers pass through looking for the faery who can bring people back from the dead. They ask for wishes, leave offerings in the forest...I think I like that more than the truth...being able to help people and have them see me as not a monster or alien, but someone who cares.” He smiles a little, and Gwen smiles back, her eyes flickering downwards to Ianto’s body. “Even when I can’t bring them back, sometimes I heal them and make the bodies look better for the families...sometimes I get to heal the sick and wounded, once I was even asked to safely deliver a child during a very complicated home birth.” He has tears in his eyes “It was the most bloody and gruesome, yet beautiful thing I had ever seen.” 

“You’re like a doctor,” Gwen replies, smiling gently.

“Oh no,” Attis laughs “No that title belongs to someone much more important than I.” He looks to the rearview mirror and catches Jack’s eyes, and the captain nods slowly before his gaze focuses on the road again. 

The rest of the ride is silent, bar some quick conversations, Attis asks Gwen bits and pieces about her life and she asks him about his, but Jack stays quiet. Gwen does not need to ask if he’s okay to know he isn’t, not really. A quiet Jack is a scared Jack, one that doesn’t know what to say or how to say it. But if this goes to plan he might be getting Ianto back. Forever, too... _that_ might be even scarier. 

The forest is dark and silent, the trees loom over them as they carry the body from to the car into the woods. The grass seems to straighten a little at Attis’ presence and he smiles a little, tilting his head back as though greeting the branches of the trees. They can see the energy seeping back into him, as though his lifeforce itself comes from roots and leaves. Jack sets up some lights from the back of the car, they’re the sort that is used in construction sites, harsh and bright. Ianto’s body lays between them like the centre of some modern ritual. 

Attis kneels beside him, his hand pressed to his skin, he nods. “Okay...I don’t know how long this will take.” he looks over at Jack, swallowing his breath “I will do everything I can to make sure he comes back as...whole as possible.” 

Gwen sits outside the lights, her back to a tree as she holds her coffee flask in her hands, watching. Attis’ hands press to the outside of Ianto’s skin, one pressed to his stomach, the other to his ribs. She hears a sort of snapping sound and then something...like skin being penetrated. Then she looks away because the noise is enough to unsettle her. 

Time passes, none of them knows how long, before Attis takes in a deep breath and leans over Ianto, pressing his own forehead to the other man's. Then...a breath. It’s quiet, strangled at first, Ianto’s lungs heaving in remembrance of their starvation. Jack stands up straight, stepping forward, but Attis holds out a hand. “Not yet, he’s not finished yet, his body is just breathing.” Jack doesn’t know if he believes in souls, not really, but even the Gauntlet was more than just shocks, it was physically reaching into something and bringing them back; whatever it is he doesn’t claim to understand it...not really, so he lets the other man finish his work. 

Attis takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, he tilts his head back for a second like he’s looking for something or someone, then he presses one hand to Ianto’s heart and the other to his forehead. Jack watches as his shoulders slump and he gasps for air, his face scrunching in pain, he steps forward but Gwen shakes her head, anything could jeopardize Ianto coming back in one piece and neither of them wanted that to be Jack’s interference.

There’s quiet, silence and then two heaving, startled, and scared breaths as Attis tumbles backwards, his hand scrabbling through the dirt. The corpse that is no longer a corpse sits bolt upright, eyes searching frantically as he looks around him...then his eyes land on Jack and he sighs, his breath stuttering. “I was…”

“I know.” Jack muttered, kneeling beside him “I know.” 

Attis slumps back against the grass and stares up at the canopy of trees, before closing his eyes for a moment. He hates The Dark so much. Gwen offers him the remains of her coffee and he takes it with thanks, sitting up to watch Ianto bury his head in Jack’s chest, tears in his eyes from relief or pain or sheer love. He catches muttered words but decides they are not for him to hear, as the three sit in the rebirth of someone who fate wouldn’t allow to die.


	2. i couldn't utter my love when it counted (but I'm singing like a bird about it now)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack tries to figure out what Attis is, whilst Ianto begins to adjust to the fact he's breathing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Shrike by Hozier it's a good song and I recommend it, gives me Janto vibes, also the same song for the last chapter idk if that's going to be a theme, I get the feeling I'll run out of lyrics at some point. 
> 
> Also comments are super appreciated! Even if it's just something really short; if you want updates on this the best way I can tell which fics are to be updated next is via the comments!
> 
> Next chapter I may have Attis' character profile ready also!

Ianto is shivering as he takes a careful bite out of the sandwich in his hands. The whole room is quiet and Attis is fast asleep on the couch, seemingly exhausted. Jack doesn’t attempt to wake him because he looked like he was about to pass out long before they had arrived back at base. Gwen is tapping away on the computer, the sound of fingers on the keyboard far too loud. Ianto chews very slowly as his stomach lurches with every bite, not entirely happy with its reawakening; he isn’t sure he is either, a thousand questions are running through his mind but he hasn’t a clue of how to voice a single one of them. Where do you even start when you’ve died and come back to life? Which question is the most important? Is it “Why am I back from the dead?” or is “Why didn’t you tell me that you loved me when I was dying in every which way to hear you say it back?” The silence is uncomfortable and stiff, and yet nobody makes a move to break it. 

Jack does, eventually, but it’s as though he is so very keen to avoid the elephant in the room “Anything on him yet, Gwen?” 

“Did you not do that before he brought me back from the dead?” Ianto asks, his voice shaky and hoarse and a little bit annoyed in his own quiet way. Jack looks back at him and offers a tight smile and a shrug; and as usual, Ianto forgives him. Gwen’s expression when she looks at Ianto is much more sympathetic, calmer like she pities him and doesn’t really try to hide that. He can’t tell if he prefers Jack’s stern avoidance or her agonisingly embarrassing sympathy. 

“Not much, I ran a facial recognition scan and it’s almost like he just didn’t exist until now, but that mostly aligns with his story...living in a forest doesn’t exactly have many surveillance cameras.” Jack nods and folds his arms across his chest as his gaze goes to the sleeping man. “Impression?” She asks, and he tilts his head to the side and raises his eyebrows like he’s saying ‘well…’ before he looks back at her, waiting on her own input. “Lie detector said he was telling the truth, so I would assume that either he believes what he’s saying enough for it to read true…” Ianto shivers a little, the memory of that thing being used on him, the things he believed he did. “Or he is telling the whole truth and Ianto really is a fixed point in time, like you, and there is something going on that none of us present understand.” 

“Am I…” Ianto clears his throat, his gaze anywhere but theirs “Am I...immortal?” 

“I don’t know.” The firm reply the captain gives has the younger man’s shoulders sagging, he really knows he should stop relying on Jack to have the answer to everything, but his heart still sinks. “We’re going to run some tests on you and on him, hopefully then at least we’ll have answers to _some_ questions; for now, you need to rest and apparently so does he.” Jack gestures to the sleeping creature that looks like a human being, yet they’ve seen that he’s not. “Whatever he is I sincerely hope he’s the only one.” Gwen flinches a little “Yeah I know, but as it stands what he is, has the power to be very dangerous, and if there’s more of him then we could have a bigger problem on our hands than immortal humans.” Jack looks between them, expecting a challenge, but Ianto just looks exhausted and Gwen doesn’t push it further. “At the moment I'm fighting the urge to lock him up.” 

“You said you wouldn’t.” She counters, eyes narrowing as she stands up straighter. 

“I won’t.” Jack continued, holding up a hand to silence the rant he knows will come. “I won’t, but not because I don’t want too.” He looks over at Ianto “But he will be staying here until I know everything’s okay...besides, we could do with a doctor.” 

\--

Attis does not like blood tests, he decides, five seconds after a needle has been shoved into his arm. He watches his blood drain with his nose wrinkled in distaste. “You’ve brought dead people back to life but a needle is too much for you?” Jack asks with a tinge of humour to his tone, Attis shrugs with one shoulder, the one not connected to the arm with a needle in it and then looks away. 

“Not a fan of blood if you’d believe it.” He chuckles shortly, his eyes looking tired in a different way to the exhaustion of last night. The captain glances at him with the slightest bit of worry in his eyes, the last thing he needs is the other passing out on him. He’d honestly like for this to be over quite as much as Attis would, he isn’t sure what this creature’s defence mechanism is or whether it’s fully controllable when a piece of metal is being shoved into his veins. “It’s an unfortunate side effect of my job, really, that in order to heal there first has to be the wounded,” His face relaxes with his thoughts, his eyes going vacant. Jack makes a distant noise of agreement, but mostly he’s surveying the other cautiously, bringing the needle out of his arm. 

He goes to ask Attis if he needed anything to stop the blood flow, but the man had already pressed a finger to his own skin, healing the slight pinprick easily and without much effort. After raising the dead, a needle prick is probably nothing to him. 

“How is he?” Attis asks after a moment of quiet silence, his eyes darker in the low light of the base. “Does he seem...normal? Okay?” His tone appears genuine but Jack still isn’t all that keen to trust, still, he glances up from the cramped medical bay up to where Ianto and Gwen are talking; Ianto looks paler than usual and tired, but his speech is fine and his motor skills are as good as ever. He looks back to the not-human that looks and sounds so very human, sat on the hospital bed with the curious eyes of someone so young and yet so old at the same time. 

“He’s fine.” Jack finally replies, bluntly, his mind still half lost in his thoughts but he’s well aware the appropriate window of time for a response had passed. “Tired, but fine, for now.” Then his gaze moves away “But you won’t be leaving yet until I know he’s perfectly safe and…” Attis nods his head, he doesn’t need to hear the rest so he waves a dismissive hand. 

“Am I in a cell or…?” He slides off of the medical bed, the American looks taken aback by his admittance. “Not used to people just agreeing with you, huh?” He snorts “The way I see it, I’ve been shoved into something that I don’t really know, I’d like to find out what happens next _mostly_ out of curiosity, but I also want to know how that,” He gestures to Ianto “...turns out.” Attis’ hand falls by his side and he turns to look at Jack with a sigh “That and I get the feeling this is the safest place for me to be right now.” 

He’s not _wrong_ , Jack muses silently to himself, but it’s still unnerving to have someone that powerful not remotely try and argue about being essentially quarantined in his midst. “Mind if I have something to drink?” Attis does not wait for a reply, brushing past the captain and up the metal stairs; the sound of the walkway clattering under his feet silence Gwen and Ianto, who look up from their conversation. The Welshman opens his mouth and then closes it again, his gaze going from the creature and to the floor, as though what he wanted to say seemed a potentially bad idea to voice. The man doesn’t even hesitate at the silence, just walks between the two and makes his way over to the coffee machine. There’s a silence before he calls “Okay, how does this thing work?” Gwen snorts and the awkward silence shatters, Ianto sighs and stands up. 

“First day back to life and I’m already making coffee.” He smiles, small and tired as he picks up his own empty cup to make his way down to the machine. “It’s like nothing’s changed.” He places his hand on the counter and for a moment he wants to ignore it...the fact that he died and that this creature had brought him back to life. He wants to act as though it’s nothing, but then it’s not really in his nature to ignore the elephant in the room. There’d been so many times where he couldn’t ignore something as simple as a crush, dying is a different ballpark and also much more...un-ignorable. Attis notices his silence and steps back from the coffee machine, a sympathetic look in his eyes 

“Are you okay?” He asks, and Ianto laughs shortly, humourlessly. He looks up at the man in front of him, the one who had brought him back from the dead...should he be grateful? Was it worth it? Jack won’t even really look him in the eyes and there is a suffocating silence that is all bitter and no sweet. And then, the news that there is every chance he could die again fairly soon, or worse, live forever. Ianto knows these are only such overwhelming worries because they’d been presented to him all at once and fairly quickly after his resurrection, he knows there is every chance that these will not bother him so greatly one day, should he survive. 

He also knows it isn’t fair to blame Attis. So he sighs and shakes his head. “Not really, no, but for now…” he points to the coffee machine “...one problem at a time.” 

\--

Gwen approaches Jack whilst the lads try to make coffee, there’s a machine next to him making a slow beeping noise as the projector projects images onto a screen. He stares at it blankly, his expression digesting what he’s reading. “Any luck figuring out what he is?” She asks, breaking the silence too suddenly as he twitches a little in surprise, he’s usually so aware of his own surroundings but right now he’s trying to make sense of the readings in front of him. 

“Unlikely, is what he is,” Jack mutters, resting his head in his hand for a moment. “As I suspected, he’s definitely got the blood work of those...fairies, you remember they took the child, but...fairies don’t really breed as far as we can tell not the way humans do anyway, they claim their chosen ones and they become them.” He shakes his head with a heavy sigh “He is one of them, but still undeniably human, he’s...unique as far as I can tell, I’ve never seen anything like it.” Gwen sits down on the metal steps, staring at the projection on the screen with a concentrated look “If he is one of them, then that would suggest that they can breed with humans unless...maybe I’m looking at this wrong…” He clicks his fingers and points at Gwen “Because Humans breed in one way but other creatures breed in a variety of ways, you know like the bite.” Her nose wrinkles in distaste, remembering her wedding day. “These creatures are masters of all the elements of earth it’s unlikely they’d produce children the same way when they connect mostly psychically.”

“What like...mind sex?”

“Something like that...I think anyway, I have no real way to tell without questioning one personally and even then I get the feeling that I’d have to be talking _specifically_ to the one responsible for him.” He points down the corridor to where Ianto and Attis are wandering back up, cradling cups of coffee. Jack’s gaze lingers on the two of them, on Ianto’s small smile as they talk about something calmly; he tears his eyes away. 

“Maybe…” Gwen pauses and bites her lip, Jack looks at her expectantly so she takes a deep breath. “He isn’t a threat, he’s already shown that and yes, we need to be on guard but maybe we don’t need all the answers, Jack.” He stares at her like she’s speaking another language “Especially when the answers seem so very far out of reach and we might have much bigger problems.” She glances over her shoulder to the other two “He said Ianto was a fixed point in history, in time and space...there has got to be a reason for that.” 

“Not necessarily.” Jack turns off the projector and leans against the metal railing with his head tilted back to stare at the ceiling “Most things that happen in history are a complete fluke, a one-off accident.” He glances back at Gwen “It doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything in the grand scheme of things.” Yet he knows something’s off, he just wants to convince himself that the universe loved Ianto even half as much as he did; that the Welshman hadn’t been brought back to life just to suffer more and more.

“Most things that happen don’t get a letter in the post telling someone that they have to bring a stranger back to life because history said so.” Gwen counters, Jack looks at the ground. He’s getting sick of sighing, the deep breaths full of exhaustion that pull his shoulders up and down; but he sighs again, resigned and tired whilst memorising the cracks in the tiled floor of the medical bay. 

“I know.” He utters finally. “I know.” 

She understands to some extent, understands what it means to want to pull apart reality to bring someone you love back from the dead. She understands how much Jack wants to protect the man he loves, and the lengths he’d go to for that. But she cannot let him lower his guard for that either, it’s not what he would want and mistakes like that tend to get people killed. “For now we need to focus on what Attis knows rather than what he is, because right now what he _is_ is on our side, and that is quite frankly all that matters at the moment.” Jack looks up, lips pursed before he nods. 

“Okay then, let’s find out what he knows.” He leans up off the railings and Gwen stands, she stands still for a moment, noticing the distracted look on Jack’s face. 

“I’ll ask him.” She speaks clearly, _firmly_ after a second of thought “You...you need to talk to Ianto, it’s written all over your face no matter how hard you try to be mister-i’m-in-control-of-my-emotions,” her tone is teasing and familiar and she tries to be as light-hearted as possible despite the current situation. Jack, finally, laughs. Gwen smiles in response and steps to the side to let him brush past, before following up after him to speak to the two stood chatting idly in the walkway.

\--

Attis follows Gwen with no complaint, holding his cup of coffee between cold hands as he follows her down to what he assumes is an interrogation room. He doesn’t take it personally, after all, it’s not like Torchwood gets many people who comply with their demands, so they’re not going to go and build a whole room for him to answer their questions. Still, he shivers a little like he can feel echoes of the violence this room has seen. Gwen smiles sympathetically, placing a notebook and pen on top of the desk as Attis sits on the seat, bring his feet up to fold them on the chair; a feat that should look far more difficult but he makes look effortless, cramming his feet on the small plastic chair. She’s reminded distantly of a child, the way he sits there gazing at her expectantly, by his species standards (if there ever is truly another of him) she supposes he’s a teenager at best. “What do you remember about the person who came to see you?”

He closes his eyes as he thinks “He was tall, thin, pale skin and dark blue eyes, he smelt like rain and...arson, when I looked at him I felt warm, too warm.” She notes this down, alongside a little note that says it’s possible Attis has low-level psychic abilities...not entirely unbelievable given that he can reach into the darkness and bring souls back from the dead, nor when one considers his parentage. “He gave me a file, it had the location of Torchwood or near enough anyway, I still had to stand outside in the cold to come in.” He chuckles shortly “It also had pictures of Ianto, his name, his biography so to speak, the important parts.” He opened his eyes again “But not how he died, strangely enough, just that he was dead.” His breath comes out short and shaky for a second; no matter how many times he heals people, seeing the dead always hurts him in some way, their faces all pale in the cold. Attis shakes his head “To be honest it wasn’t all that well put together, I figured if someone wants time and space putting right they’d at least tell me how to get into Torchwood without standing outside, and you know...how the person I’m supposed to bring back, died.” He tuts disapprovingly “Although I suppose if I’d just wandered in you would’ve shot me.” 

“Probably,” Gwen confirms, but there’s a slight smile on her lips that says she’s mostly lying. “Maybe they wanted you to find out yourself?” 

He shrugs “I suppose, gas poisoning does different things depending on the gas, the length of time exposed to it, how healthy the person’s lungs are in the first place…” He trails off, his gaze going absent for a second “...basically it could’ve just been I would’ve had to see for myself anyway.” Attis sighs then “But I still don’t understand why me, I cannot be the only person with the ability to bring people back from the dead.” This sentence stuns the woman for a second, it hadn’t even occurred to her that there could be other objects or creatures out there that could do what he does. She isn’t sure why it hadn’t, she has seen objects that can resurrect.

“Are you saying that this isn’t as rare as we thought?” 

He looks at her and bites the inside of his cheek, before sighing “I’m saying that if I exist then the chances of me being the only person that exists this way in some shape or form, or least have or will exist...is unlikely.” Gwen leans back in her chair, taking a deep breath in as she mulls it over. “I don’t have proof, of course, but I just think if I exist it’s probably for a reason, a calculated reason at that.” She nods with a hum of agreement “That look on your face...Jack said he’s seen what bringing people back from the dead does to them, what did he mean?”

“We used to have this...technology, it would bring people to life but something always went wrong when we did.” She sighed shakily, looking down at the table “You’re right though, it wouldn’t make sense unless you were some sort of experiment.” His head snaps up a little, a look on his face that told her to stop thinking aloud. “Sorry, I didn’t mean...nevermind.” She looks towards the door. “The file you were given, was it handwritten?” 

“Typed up, looked like it was typed up on a typewriter, and the paper was worn like it had been held onto for a few years before ending up with me.” 

“But that’s impossible...Ianto died a few months ago.”

“Nothing’s quite impossible, Gwen,” He sips his coffee thoughtfully “It just seems a lot of things happen here that are quite improbable.” The cup clinks against the countertop, he leans back in his chair, unfolding his legs back to the floor. “It would explain why the cause of death wasn’t on there though.” 

“They knew Ianto was going to die, but not how?” He shrugs in response. “So let’s run on that theory, somebody needs Ianto back and they need you specifically to do it, they know roughly when he is going to die but not how he dies, which rules out them witnessing the death...but maybe the aftermath.” 

“Okay, so time travel?” Attis interjects “That’s always a fun place to start.” He stares down at his emptying cup of coffee. “So let’s say this person witnesses the aftermath of Ianto’s death, that still doesn’t tell us why they needed him alive, or even who they are.” He doesn’t really notice that he says ‘us’ like he’d just assimilated himself within the team, but Gwen’s lip quirks a little at the admission that he’s just as curious about what’s going on here as they are. “What if they see something other than the aftermath...what if they see a complete future that we haven’t experienced yet that somehow...in some way...Ianto is a pivotal part of?” He sighs “Forgive me, but isn’t he a coffee boy?” Gwen snorts. 

“Maybe at some point.” The silence descends around them and they both take a deep breath in. “There’s a lot of things this could be about and that’s only from the things we already know, we could be walking into this completely blind.” Attis nods silently in agreement “How are you feeling about staying here?” He smiles and looks down at his coffee cup, before taking a mouthful of it.

“I think I’d really like to know what I’m doing here and why, and I think whoever sent me knew I’d be too curious to really put up a fight, I think this is all very much co-ordinated and I’d like to find out what’s going on, and when something weird goes on Torchwood seems to be the place to be.” He looks to the door, the smile slipping from his face as he closes his eyes again. “Every time I bring somebody back something is different, their bodies react differently, I also want to know what Ianto’s difference is going to be.” He sighs and looks back at Gwen “I just hope it’s a good difference.” 

\--

Ianto sits on the other side of Jack’s desk with a look of nervousness on his face; he isn’t sure why he’s nervous in all honesty after all this was something that should be good. He’s alive and Jack’s alive and they’re both together again. But when Jack looks at him it’s almost like he’s looking straight through him, not at him as a person but everything that’s behind this, all the cogs in the machine that brought Ianto back to life. He has always admired Jack’s ability to have such a busy mind, but now more than ever he just wants him to be still for once, to appreciate the fact that he’s here...to live and not just be alive. 

Jack’s eyes finally meet his own and he must see the look on the other man’s face because his own softens and he sits down from his pacing, folding his hands in front of him as he looks at the other, the smallest smile on his lips. “It’s good to see you again,” the captain speaks softly with an overwhelming sincerity. 

“It’s good to be home.” Jack smiles a little wider at the words, and nods slowly, swallowing dryly before he stands up and moves around the desk to lean against it. He looks down at Ianto in a way he has done so very many times before, a look in his eyes that now tinges with regret...not at bringing Ianto back, never that, but just the fact he ever let him slip away in the first place. The American is used to taking life for granted and nothing quite reminds him of mortality like love, watching other people wither away around you. But that has never really stopped him from living his life, from falling in love. After all, heartbreak is such a human emotion and he’s detached enough without making the situation worse by denying companionship. 

In that sense, he learned from the best, really. It doesn’t matter how old, how ancient one can get, love is fundamental for staying sane and for staying whole; and not just in the romantic sense.

With that thought, he smiles tightly and leans down to press his lips to Ianto’s. It wasn’t how he’d imagined their first kiss reunited to be, it’s not full of anything more than a kiss, it’s just soft and a little scared. Timidly, Ianto’s hand cups Jack’s jaw and the softest touch feels like an electric shock. Distantly he’s reminded of their first kiss, the nervousness radiating off of Ianto, the awe in his eyes when he looked at Jack. The taste of coffee stinging between their lips...it feels like _coming home_. 

Jack pulls away and takes a deep breath before resting his forehead against the other man's, eyes closed as they take a second just to breathe. They have no idea what’s coming next or if this peace will be short-lived. They both have so many questions and so much they want to ask. But right now, for this moment, that’s someone else's life and someone else's problem. It’s a different world far away from this office, where the sound of gentle breathing is the only thing to be heard.


	3. i was hatched by your warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto's brain plays catch up with his body, whilst Attis opens up a little bit.

The first time it happens, Ianto was just stood still; he was wearing a shirt and suit pants and he hadn't quite done up his tie yet because it was barely 6 am, and Jack had insisted he spend the first few nights on base but that seemed mostly to be a ploy than truthfully about his actual health. He'd been about to make coffee, but as he reached for the mug he felt a sharp, searing pain and then a smell that he knew to be burning...but not just burning, burning _flesh_. Somewhere at the back of his own mind, he hears his own voice, panicked and scared, like a memory but not like one he remembers, not really. He can't remember ever knowing that he'd lived through something like that. 

Attis hears his sharp inhale of pain and is darting down the walkways in a second, a look on his face like he thought Ianto was dying, but instead finds the man with his hands pressed to the sides of his head. The Welshman had not, truly, become accustomed to the other's presence or even existence, not yet, but when he asks if he is okay he lowers his hands and truthfully tells him that he has a sudden migraine. The other man gestures for him to come closer and peers at him curiously, after checking there are no identifiable issues other than sudden head-banging pain, he hums to himself in brief thought "It may just be an aftershock of your mind reprocessing that you're alive, after all, it was jump-started rather quickly and you were dead for quite the while, it's likely still trying to bring itself up to date whilst also taking in new memories, human minds are finicky and a bit stubborn and it probably does not take kindly to the fact it wasn't working for a few months." He smiles, kindly, not the way Ianto is used to seeing doctors smile...there's no pretend sympathy or lightly coded "You're wasting my time," and that is somehow more reassuring. "Let me know if you get any more symptoms though and I'll have a peek at the inside of your mind, both physically and otherwise if you so please." 

"O-Otherwise?" Ianto asks his stutter half out of fear and the rest from surprise. 

"Have a shift through the actual mind itself, memories and such, it's a very delicate process and I don't have much practice but I'm at least 70% sure I can do it." Attis grins, and for some reason, the only reaction the other man can muster in response is a short laugh, whether it be of disbelief or in acknowledgement of the feeling that he may be a bit of a guinea pig to Attis. He also realizes that should scare him far more than it does. He's not even sure it scares him at _all_. 

The second time it happens it is intensely more painful. He was holding something, a folder he thinks, but he drops it the moment the pain hits, something like the feeling of someone gripping the inside of his brain and digging their nails right into the nerves that fill his head, he's been shot before and it might actually come second place to this feeling. Attis, again, races from where he is to stand in front of Ianto, a panicked look on his face as his hands come out to steady him "It's okay," he says it so calmly even though there's panic on his face "Is it still hurting?" Ianto doesn't want to move, but he does manage a hoarse 'yes' like he's been dehydrated for months and should be clinically dead. The latter does hold true, but not quite for that reason. "Can you describe the symptoms for me?" He knows and understands that Attis is not used to being an actual doctor with an actual patient and that he’s adopting words and phrases that seem familiar so Ianto doesn't feel the situation is too odd. He appreciates that when it finally registers about two hours after this actual conversation. 

"My brain feels like it's on fire." He whispers "And I think...I have memories that I don't remember having." Attis' hands freeze by Ianto's arms, his face flickering between confusion and understanding and then _realisation_. "fuck!" He clasps his hand over his head, Attis bats away his hand and brings his own to place on his forehead. 

"You're burning up, come on, we need to sit you down." Attis moves to help Ianto down to the medical bay, the other freezes up once they get to the steps, standing very still as his hands come out to grasp the railing. The elder stands beside him, green eyes flickering over his face as he tries to speak, to get Ianto to move, he gets a split second warning before the other man’s legs give out under him and he’s trying his best to support Ianto’s weight. Attis isn’t exactly strong, energetic maybe, and having far more stamina than the average person, but strength is not his forte. He summons any energy he can to half carry Ianto to the makeshift hospital bed, calling up to Jack the moment he can get the dead weight of the other man onto the metal bed.

“What the hell happened?” The captain comes rushing down the stairs, Gwen close behind, staring down at Ianto with thinly-veiled worry. 

“His brain is on fire,” Attis curses under his breath, running his hands on his face “I can’t even locate which part...his whole mind is going through a frenzy right now.” He leans against the railing, holding up his hands for quiet as he tries to think “He said he was having flashes of things that must have happened to him because they were from his perspective, Jack...” Attis looks over to the captain, who is hiding his panic in the form of anger which is not something that the other man needs right now, he needs Jack to be calm. “...how often have you wiped Ianto’s memories, on average, an educated guess?” 

“He’s been retconned, that I know of...three times, I think, of his own will.” Attis nods slowly, closing his eyes “But he also worked for Torchwood One, and I don’t think they were exactly liberal in their treatments of employees.” He takes a deep breath in and then another out 

“There’s nothing I can do for this.” The smaller man finally utters “When I brought Ianto back...I brought back all of him, even the parts of him that weren’t conscious. Memory doesn’t get wiped, you’ve said before that retcon can be triggered and memories can return...when I brought him back, that little spark of energy brought everything back.” 

There’s a look in the creature’s eyes that is hard and quietly furious but he refuses to outwardly express it “We need to bring his fever down, make him comfortable because I physically cannot do anything about this and neither can you...messing around with memories is a short fuse away from brain damage.” He leans up off the side and moves to stand beside Ianto “I can give him something for the fever, but he’s just going to have to ride this one out, I’m sorry.” 

“But he’ll be okay?” 

“Well, symptomatically the issue isn’t actually with him, his body is reacting to the pain of memories returning that previously he didn’t actually have.” 

“But if we wiped his memories, or if Torchwood One wiped his memories...wouldn’t it have been for a reason? Will this have any outward effect?” Gwen asks, leaning over the railing with a fixed frown. Attis looks up at her, but his mouth simply closes as he turns to Jack for an answer. The captain shakes his head.

“One problem at a time, maybe?” Attis offers the following silence: “For now, we just have to deal with the symptoms, which are migraines, raised temperature and high pulse, his pupils are looking quite dilated, or at least they were when his eyes were open...do you have anywhere more comfortable than a metal table?” 

“Believe or not, this is not a bed and breakfast,” Jack replied curtly “We can take him to my room, it’s more of a bunker, but it does have a bed.” He scoops Ianto up easily and Attis moves out of the way to let him carry him. The medic leans against the empty table with his eyes closed, Gwen stands up a little straighter, watching him almost cautiously. He doesn’t blame her, not really, but he gets the feeling that no matter what they’re all going to always be a little jumpy around him and that does sting just a bit. 

It’s not like he asked for this life. 

Still, he has a job to do which is infinitely more important than his feelings right now, so he leans back up off the table. “Get him some ibuprofen, we’ll see how mundane medicine works on him before we go putting any more of…” he looks down at his own hands “...me in him.” Gwen’s gaze softens a little. 

“It isn’t your fault, if anything it’s ours, or even his own, but you couldn’t have known he’d react like this.” 

Attis’ expression is something short of amused as he looks up at Gwen, nodding slowly “Ianto is not a normal person in a normal job at an average place in time. I overlooked that there would be complications of this nature, which was short-sighted of me, but I don’t remotely blame myself for this.” He shakes his head “I am simply unnerved at the practice of removing your employee’s memories. If Jack is telling the truth and it is such a little number on his part...then I am a little less than worried when it comes to whatever Torchwood One’s actions were for that to happen.” he points up the empty stairwell “I’ve seen people recover from lost memories, and I have never seen that.” He shakes his head “Not on my part, I can’t do something that delicate, one wrong move and you could be leaving someone without any sense of their own person.” 

“Bringing people back from the dead is fine but restoring memories...too much?”

“When I start people’s minds again it’s like shocking them awake, I don’t go through their brain bit by bit to restore it, it’s an everything at once situation.” Attis shakes his head, sighing “It’s hard to explain...but memory is part of so much more than just one primary area of your brain..it’s contained in so many elements of your own mind, although it’s usually catalysed by the hippocampus.” He gestures as he speaks, leaning back against the metal table-bed of the medical bay. “Because your long term memory uses so many parts of your brain...hence why some people have a more verbal memory or a more visual memory...it’s very hard to sit down and poke through someone’s mind, which is why I couldn’t see where in Ianto’s brain something is going wrong.” He shakes his head “And now his body thinks something is wrong with him because his mind is producing memories that he shouldn’t remember, it’s reacting in defence and against his brain.” Attis sighs again, quick and hard, it’s almost a laugh of pity. 

“Do you think Jack is telling the truth? That he hasn’t retconned him that many times?” Gwen folds her arms against the railing, looking down at Attis. He knows she is asking for comfort in her own way, but he also knows from the look in her eyes why she’s really asking. He raises his eyebrows and looks up at her, his lips parting for a moment, before shaking his head. 

“Do you?” She shifts back, her hand holding onto the railing as she looks down at the floor. Her jaw tenses and he can see the worry in her eyes like she’s second-guessing herself and he can’t quite help the flow of empathy that has him opening his mouth again. “I think that whatever Jack says, it’s for your own protection whether it’s the truth or not, he wouldn’t do anything that was not in your best interest.” Gwen meets his eyes again from where she stands, and he bows his head a little “But I also don’t think in this instance he has any reason to lie, eventually Ianto is going to remember everything he once had no memory of...and I also think that Jack wouldn’t wipe his memory more times than absolutely necessary...for rather obvious reasons don’t you think?” He raises his head again and offers a tight smile, Gwen’s shoulders relax. “Now, ibuprofen, lots of water, whilst I try and work on a backup, where do I find nettles in central Cardiff?” 

She snorts and shakes her head, gesturing for him to follow her. 

\--

When Ianto comes too, he finds an alarming amount of plants in the room that he’s in, for a moment he’s so surprised to be inches away from a cluster of dandelions that he actually manages to forget to be in pain. “How’s the headache?” Attis calls down the ladder. 

“A little less searing.” He looks up to see the spritely young man drop down without really using the metal rungs specifically designated for doing so. “Why all the plants?” He can’t identify them all just by looking, for the most part, he understands the weeds because his mother used to have him yanking them out of her garden. And nettles, he flinches on autopilot when he sees the nettles sitting in a basket. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t be stinging you with them.” He chuckles. “They’re for the tea.” Ianto notices then that he’s cradling a kettle, an actual kettle too...he hadn’t even known they own actual kettles...after all, they have a coffee machine so what’s really the point? “If it were up to me we’d be using a good old fashioned pot and a fire but Jack says I’m not allowed to set a fire inside of Torchwood.” 

Ianto smiles despite the pounding in his head and shivers despite the fact his skin is on fire. “Did you ever want to be a doctor?” He asks because a little bit of conversation feels a lot nicer, a lot easier than wallowing in his pain. Attis chuckles a little, but he shakes his head. 

“Not really, no, I didn’t want to be one as a child but I don’t really think it mattered then what I wanted, in those days you didn’t really choose what you wanted, the men were farmers, the women were in maternal roles and every now and then someone was smart enough to be something else.” He turns the kettle on, picking nettles by the bottom of their stems and pushing the leaves off into a metal bowl in one fluid movement. “And then the...then they called it magic...that started and I didn’t have much of a choice, either way, I left before they could drown me in the river and travelled for miles, there was so much then, so many trees and fields and land, I could travel for days without encountering civilisation.” He sighs “I got on a boat at some point, ended up in Wales, spent about a century there before moving on to England, I never really stayed in one town or city. It seemed natural to end up in the forest in the end.” 

“Does it really talk to you?” Ianto asks, sitting up slowly with a slight wince as his head jolts from the movement, sparks of pain running through him, he hisses slightly and Attis looks over at him but thankfully does not start fussing. 

“It’s not so much words and communication, it’s more like feelings.” The other man starts quietly as the kettle boils on the table. “A sense of this or that, right or wrong, left and right, I can feel it breathe, I can feel the Earth turning beneath my feet....see humans always see the Earth as something separated; with your borders and your markers and signs and gateways...but I know the Earth is not that, it is a whole organism with its own sense of language that we simply can’t understand, botanists and herbologists and the like get a sense, they can understand the physical attributes; when a plant withers it either does not have enough food or water the way a human might, or when it starts to bend it is searching for light, or when it flowers it is flourishing, but you can’t feel it cry, or be happy, I can.” 

Ianto takes a deep breath in, he couldn’t imagine how that must feel, or what the inside of Attis’ head must look like. Some part of him doesn’t even want to believe him, his life has always been dedicated towards the work of aliens but the ethereal nature of something like that being born of the flesh and blood of this planet is somehow much harder to wrap his head around. Attis meets his eyes and smiles, it’s a sad smile, Ianto looks away. “Imagine what it’s like, to know that the very thing that gave you life is dying around you, suffocating and screaming and you can’t save it.” The younger man realizes then, that maybe Attis is not all that different from the rest of them, he’s seen that hopeless look in many people before. “I can rejuvenate the earth but at some point, there is going to be nothing left to do so, and I will die with it.” He shrugs and stands up a little straighter as the kettle signifies it has finished its job, and he pours boiling water into the bowl, his hands moving to sort out an assortment of herbs and spices and plants. “This will help with the migraine, but the fever you’re just going to have to sweat out with some good old fashioned medication, from the pharmacist, not me.” Ianto gives a tight smile, but he doesn’t really know what to say. 

But he does conclude something in his own mind, Attis does not mean them, or anyone, any harm. 

\--

Attis doesn’t leave Ianto’s side, at first Jack put this down to curiosity, he wants to know the effect that his powers have had, a scientific curiosity of a sort. But every time Jack went down to check on the two, he found them both...talking, not about Ianto, but about Attis, about his life; he started to understand that the other has been alone for a very long time, that even the people who revered him found him unnerving and scary, and that he’s just as desperate for a connection as anyone else.

Unlike Jack, his trauma had not forced him to become cold or calculated, he was reluctant at first to discuss his life but the moment Ianto asked him a question, he wouldn’t stop talking. The captain studied this reaction and interpreted it, quite accurately, as survivor’s camaraderie, or herd mentality. Attis had just brought Ianto back from the dead and he can relate with him, so he feels comfortable with him because he too has survived far much than he should have and death is basically the first rung on a very tall ladder that the creature has had to climb. 

“So, out of curiosity, are these powers solely defensive?” Jack asks, accepting a cup of tea and sitting down at the end of Ianto’s bed. “You mentioned you’ve killed before, but only in self-defence.”

“They’re whatever I need them to be, physical manifestations that are intricately intertwined with my needs, or feelings.” Attis sips his own tea, sitting on the chair with his feet brought up to his chest. He doesn’t seem fond of sitting in a chair like a normal person. “I can’t really show you properly in a place like this, but when Ianto’s feeling a little less like a dead man walking we could field trip it.” He’s also starting to enjoy being here, just a bit. Not Torchwood itself, the building is so full of brick and metal and concrete it’s almost insufferable, but the people...it’s been so long since people have spoken to him as a person, not a god or a monster, just...a person. 

“Sounds like fun.” Ianto’s smile is weak but there’s a lot more than just fear in his eyes, after all he’s a fighter and has been for a very long time, much longer than he thought he had been. “There’s a lot of these memories that I’m getting back that I can’t tell anyone about.” He closes his eyes for a moment “Somethings are not meant to be remembered.”

“When it comes to distress, your brain is much cleverer than you think it is.” Attis explains quietly “Sometimes you don’t really need pills to knock something out of your mind, your brain can bury it, it’s why people with PTSD report having gaps or holes in their memories, sometimes entire years of their lives hazy, your brain notes something is distressing and tries to get rid of it.” Ianto knows this, he knows everything, _of course_ , he knows this, he’s just experienced enough that he didn’t think he’d have to apply it to himself. “Don’t be surprised if there are memories that get shot in the process that you didn’t even know were linked.” 

Jack leans back in his chair, watching the two before biting the inside of his lip in thought, he doesn’t say anything for a moment, before he stands up. “You should rest.” He doesn’t know to which of them he is talking, but Attis stands. “You’ll be alright?” He turns back to Ianto, who nods reassuringly, his smile tight and uncomfortable before he rests his empty cup on the floor and shuffles back to lie in bed. His fever hasn’t gone down but the headache at the very least has dimmed. 

He should be able to get some rest. He hopes that he can get some rest.


End file.
